In the Long Term Evolution (LTE) of UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and UTRA Network (UTRAN) specifications, multiple approaches for scheduling downlink data transmission are being proposed. In particular, time division multiplexing (TDM) and frequency division multiplexing (FDM) methods, including hybrids thereof, have been proposed in addition to separate and joint coding of control channel signaling. In TDM or FDM transmissions of control channel signaling, the control information for downlink and uplink assignments may be transmitted over the first one or two symbols of the downlink frame or may be spread out over the length of a sub-frame, which may be, for example, of 0.5 ms duration, though other values are also possible. In jointly coded downlink and uplink control information schemes, all the control information relates to the sub-frame carrying the control information. A duration field has been proposed to indicate the validity of the current assignment in one sub-frame for subsequent, adjacent sub-frames. All these proposed methods however deal with controlling data transmission based on a sub-frame of 0.5 ms and a transmission time interval (TTI) that is a multiple of 0.5 ms.
The various aspects, features and advantages of the disclosure will become more fully apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon careful consideration of the following Detailed Description and the accompanying drawings described below. The drawings may have been simplified for clarity and are not necessarily drawn to scale.